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Welsh Affairs

I am very pleased to provide the final Back-Bench contribution to this afternoon's St. David's day debate, which has been interesting. I was particularly impressed with the speech made by the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Davies). It is fantastic that we have people like him in this House—slightly different MPs who are free from the complexities of carrying a party label and can be a pure and authentic voice for their communities. That was demonstrated in his strong contribution. I was also impressed by the speech made by my neighbour in west Wales, the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire (Nick Ainger), who is no longer in his place. He brought his expertise to bear, particularly in his analysis of the impact of the increase in fuel prices on our community in west Wales in terms of the increase in fuel poverty and the impact on the private sector. For me, the man of the match is the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), who made a powerful speech warning of the dangers of separatism. No matter where one stands in the devolution debate, we must take that message on board. There is no question in my mind but that separatism forms the beating heart of much of the current rhetoric from Cardiff bay, but it will provide the glide path to poverty and decline for Wales. We are stronger as part of a strong United Kingdom. That does not mean that I am against devolution—I am not a Conservative party member who calls for the abolition of the Welsh Assembly—but I sign up to the warning expressed by the right hon. Member for Islwyn this afternoon about the dangers of separatism for Wales in the long term. I want to discuss two challenges for the Welsh economy. One of them has already been discussed in some detail— namely, the skills of the work force in Wales. I want to discuss what needs to happen to upskill the work force to prepare us for the challenges of globalisation so that Wales can benefit from the opportunities offered by globalisation and the new kinds of jobs that will be available in post-industrial countries, such as Wales. The fall in unemployment in Wales in recent years is a good thing. Conservative Members do not deny the long-term fall in structural unemployment in Wales in the past 10 to 15 years, which is welcome. However, we must recognise the stubbornly high level of people claiming incapacity benefit and the problem of worklessness. Office for National Statistics figures suggest that in the past 12 months the proportion of people who are economically inactive in Wales has edged up to almost 25 per cent.—almost 25 per cent. of the work force in Wales is economically inactive, when we near as damn it have full employment in this country. As for young people who are not in education, employment or training, I cannot understand how, at a time when more and more jobs are being created in both the private and public sectors, a growing pool of young people in this country, and particularly in Wales, are effectively doing nothing useful with their lives. I do not understand that situation, which is one of the challenges of our age that we must tackle. Now that he has returned to the Front Bench at the Wales Office, I encourage the new Secretary of State to discuss the issue in detail with his colleagues at Cardiff bay and here at Westminster to focus efforts on tackling that hard-core of young people who indulge in antisocial behaviour and criminality, which have been mentioned this afternoon. We need to direct resources to tackle that problem. The other challenge for the economy concerns infrastructure. I disagree with the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire, who said that investment has been going into infrastructure in Wales. Yes, investment has gone into certain places, but we have not seen high quality, new infrastructure, which is needed throughout the Principality. Every year, the Institute of Civil Engineers produces a state of the nation report that analyses progress on improving infrastructure up and down the country. Every year, it identifies critical weaknesses in infrastructure in Wales. If I can be parochial for a moment, I shall point out that one critical weakness in Welsh infrastructure is the A40, which runs through my constituency and connects the east-west corridor through Wales to Ireland via the ferry service from Fishguard to Rosslare. The A40 is part of the strategic trans-European road network. People from Ireland have told me that the worst section of the strategic trans-European route is the section of the A40 that runs through Pembrokeshire. There has for many years been a campaign drawing attention to the need to dual the A40—to upgrade that bit of road infrastructure. Unfortunately, despite pleas from the private sector and all the principal employers in Pembrokeshire for that piece of road to be dualled, the Welsh Assembly still closes its ears. It is not interested in discussing that. I ask the new Secretary of State to raise the issue with his colleagues in the Welsh Assembly. It forms an important part of the infrastructure of Wales, linking not only to the ferry port in Fishguard but to Milford Haven, which is now one of the UK's most important oil and gas ports with the two new liquefied natural gas terminals being built there, and to one of the most exciting new tourism projects in the UK: the Bluestone project in the constituency of the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire. That will create 600 jobs, and it will bring new people to Wales, which will place further burdens on the road infrastructure, so there is a need to improve it. Let me turn from physical infrastructure to the need for virtual infrastructure, and specifically broadband. I know we have been around the houses on this matter over the years, but there is still a problem in rural Wales with lack of access to broadband. The Government said at the start of the week that they needed to look at their role in the roll-out of super high-speed broadband throughout the UK, but parts of Wales are still stuck trying to get access even to simple, slow broadband. British Telecom has received significant sums of public money over the past 10 years—tens of millions of pounds from the taxpayer—to enable it to upgrade exchanges and to help in rolling out broadband in rural areas. In Wales, it has received more than £5 million. Back in 2002, BT was claiming that thanks to the upgrading of exchanges by 2005 there would be 100 per cent. potential access to broadband in Wales. That has not happened because achieving that is about not only upgrading the exchanges, but improving the lines from exchanges to houses. Far too many houses in rural Wales are forced to have shared lines—a digital access carrier system that prevents them from accessing broadband. There is an important question that needs to be addressed: if true economic revitalisation is to come to hard-to-reach, peripheral areas such as mine, broadband will be part of the solution, and there is serious work to do to make sure that those parts of Wales can access such technology. Finally, let me say a few words about fuel prices. Last week, I spoke to two major hauliers in my constituency. It has become unfashionable in this place to speak up in defence of the haulage industry when there is so much emphasis on climate change, but we need to speak up for it. Road haulage is not going to go away, but British haulage companies could go away, to be replaced by foreign competitors who are able to buy fuel with significantly lower rates of duty attached. The last time I was at Cardiff West service station, it looked like a lorry park for Willy Betz as there were so many lorries from Germany there. There is an increasing number of foreign lorries and haulage operators on Welsh roads. Welsh haulage companies are finding it increasingly hard to compete in what is a very difficult marketplace. One of the reasons why it is difficult is the huge increase in fuel costs. Let me make another plea to the Secretary of State: when he discusses potential changes in the Budget with his Cabinet colleagues, will he caution against the extra 2p increase in fuel duty in April? Welsh hauliers need that like they need a hole in the head at this time. There is a good case for holding off from that increase in duty.